Artifact 10 - Evaluation Report
AECT Standard 5: Research
Context & Conditions
This artifact is the research paper called Empowering Minds With AI: Investigating ChatGPT’s Influence on Critical Thinking, Confidence, and Academic Achievement in Higher Education created in EDET 780 with Dr. Grant at the University of South Carolina. During this group assignment, we were asked to research a topic that we agreed upon. We were tasked to research a topic and discuss the impacts of that topic. My group decided to research artificial intelligence (AI) and the impact that it has on college students’ critical thinking, confidence, and academic achievement in higher education. During this time in my program, I was in the middle of the program and had a good understanding of instructional design and research. Additionally, I had a wonderful group member who was also confident in their ability to do research and find solutions.
The artifact was created and developed in Google Docs where we were able to share and interact with the document together. For the theories, we implemented Designing and Conducting Research Studies in Instructional Technology by Steven M. Ross and Gary M. Morrison to help set up the foundation for our research in instructional technology. Furthermore, utilizing skills like connectivism in the research allows the reader to find the information relevant and useful to the knowledge they have, which can help improve the retention of the learner when reading the research paper.
Scope
The purpose of this artifact was to create a research paper on something related to the educational technology field. We were asked to take a position on a topic and explain our position on that topic. The position that my group took was about the influence and the impact of AI on college students and their ability to perform in their academic studies. We took the stance that there is an impact on students’ confidence while completing academic tasks and keeping the performance high in their studies. This artifact is not connected to any curriculum or unit; however, I would be interested in doing longitudinal research on this to see if the conversation is the same for students’ performance now with the integration of AI compared to when we created that research.
Role
Due to this paper being a group conference research paper, this was a group project that I really enjoyed, especially with the research that we got to do on the impact of AI in higher education. For this artifact, we were all three the instructional designers and the researchers of our chosen topic that we choose. This was crucial because it allowed us to split the work up evenly and assist each other when needed. While there were no technical subject matter experts (SME) in this research paper, we did use several recognizable researchers in the educational technology field to help assist in our stance. Furthermore, one of the group mates worked in an instructional design position at a college, and he had firsthand experience of witnessing the impact of the usage of AI on college students and how it can impact the students’ confidence and abilities in their learning.
Instructional Design
This artifact aligns with the ADDIE model because we were able to design and develop a research paper based on the influence of AI on college students in higher education. According to Branch, he stated, “The purpose of the Develop phase is to generate and validate selected learning resources. Upon completion of the Develop phase, you should be able to identify all the resources that will be needed to undertake the planned episodes of intentional learning.” (Branch, 2009). By developing our research paper, we were able to establish a position on how AI influences college students while completing their academic achievements in higher education.
This artifact aligns with Morrison, Ross, and Kemp’s (MRK) instructional design model because when choosing our topic, we were looking at something that could be a concern for students. The main concern about education today is integration. According to MRK, they state, “Once we know the root cause of the problem, we can determine whether an instructional intervention will solve the problem.” (Morrison et al., 2013) By taking a stance on our research paper, we were able to identify the possibility of concern with the influence on the integration of AI for college students.
Related Performance Indicator
Theoretical Foundations – Candidates demonstrate foundational knowledge of the contribution of research to the past and current theory of educational communications and technology. (p. 242)
Reflection
This was a fun artifact to create because I really enjoy the back end of researching and gathering data to help support the position that I am taking. When reflecting on this research assignment, there were a lot of things that I would have done differently. For starters, I would have tried to gather students’ data through having questionnaires that could have been taken. Now, this was not a possibility at that moment due to the time constraints of the course, but if I were to redo and revamp the research paper, I would gather qualitative and quantitative data from the students at the University of South Carolina about how they feel about having artificial intelligence in their learning. Additionally, since AI has become more powerful over the last few years, my stance would change about how students use AI in their learning, rather than just saying the influence they have in their learning, because some students may not use AI at all, while others might.
This artifact connects back to the AECT 2012 standard five because in this research paper, we were taking data that had been developed by other researchers to help support our position in our research. By doing this, we were able to contribute that we think that AI has a positive influence on students’ confidence, critical thinking skills, and their academic achievements in their higher education experience.